Police minister highlights urgent need for oversight committee for crime intelligence

Police Minister Senzo Mchunu lamented the ongoing absence of Parliament’s joint standing committee on intelligence, describing it as "untenable" for accountability within the SAPS crime intelligence unit.

“One of the challenges we have is the absence of the joint standing committee on intelligence. This is a huge set back in terms of accountability on ourselves and on crime intelligence,” Mchunu said during his opening remarks during a meeting of the police portfolio committee on Wednesday.

He was leading the SAPS delegation to answer issues related to instability within the Crime Intelligence division and disbandment of the political killings task team, among other things.

Mchunu said he had interacted with National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza about the joint committee and its role.

“She continues to say people at State Security Agency say they are profiling people who are to serve on that committee.”

He also said it had been more than six months and the joint standing committee had still not been formed.

“I suspect there are problems there,” Mchunu said, adding that the vetting could take up to a year.

“You will realise the harm it is doing to intelligence structures, including crime intelligence,” he said.

It is not the first time there have been delays in vetting members of the joint standing committee, as this process took months to be finalised in the previous parliamentary term.

Mchunu complained that there was a flood of issues to be processed from SAPS Crime Intelligence by the committee.

His statement came as there have been reports in the media concerning the inefficiencies in crime intelligence.

Mchunu said they did not want to give the impression that they were hiding certain things when responding to questions from the police portfolio committee on crime intelligence on issues that should have been dealt with in a closed meeting of the joint standing committee.

“There are things you cannot put in the National Assembly without the necessary processing. Maybe we should visit the Speaker to put pressure on her so that we normalise matters.”

Mchunu noted that there was perception of instability within Crime Intelligence arising from some challenges, which were being dealt with.

“The division is working and it is unfortunate there are a few elements that create such instability."

Crime Intelligence divisional commissioner General Dumisani Khumalo, insisted that while there were challenges, there was stability within the division.

“There is proper management structure, especially in head office. There are certain individuals, including those who are responsible for misinformation, going as far as leaking sensitive information.

“Such actions compromise the integrity and operations of the division,” Khumalo said, adding that the division experienced misrepresentation especially on social media platforms.

“Misrepresentation is a strategy of push back by those who were and are unlawfully benefitting from issues identified as mismanagement within the division,” he said.

On the political killings task team, Khumalo said the escalation of political related incidents in KwaZulu-Natal led President Cyril Ramaphosa to establish an inter-ministerial committee and a decision was made to establish an analysis-led and prosecution-driven investigation.

The task team was allocated 333 dockets of politically related cases, including 134 reported as far back as 2011.

Khumalo detailed some of the work done by the task team to date and its successes.

However, Khumalo said Mchunu issued a directive for the disbandment of the task team last December.

The plan is to form a unit within the Organised Crime unit to deal with murder and robbery and also improve the work of the detective services.

Mchunu told the committee that the task team did not have a time frame to carry out its mandate.

“It cant be open-ended once it fulfills its role,” Mchunu said.

mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.coza